Victims Deserve A Better System of Justice - Jessica's Story

I am many things: a mother, a wife, and a City Councilor in the City of Somersworth. I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. While it doesn’t define me, this experience has in many ways shaped who I am as a person, and the way I see the world.

As a survivor, I know what it is to feel invisible, and to feel like you don’t matter. None of us ever choose to be a victim, and you never expect that it will happen to you.

But life is unfair, and all too often people find themselves affected by crime, and it changes their whole lives. There’s nothing that you, or any of us can do to make things right for these people. But I do feel that we owe it to everyone to have equal protections under the constitution—a document that is supposed to protect us ALL. Victimization is scary enough. Victims should know that they are seen, they are heard, and though their voice may very well not change the course of a case at all, they will have the right to that voice: they will have the right to be heard. As a survivor, I cannot impress upon you enough the impact this will have on those of us who feel forgotten, or fall through the cracks of the system, despite best intentions.

Victims deserve a better system of justice. No victim should have to question whether or not to report a crime or to go forward with a trial because they know that the system is stacked against them.

It’s time for NH to come together and do what’s right—it’s the essence of the NH way and is the crux of what we’re about: fairness. It’s time to support CACR 22.